Nutshell Growth Fund Picks Three Stocks for Quality at a Reasonable Price

The Nutshell Growth Fund has published its latest three stock selections, chosen by portfolio manager Mark Ellis as part of a systematic screening process that begins with 10,000 publicly listed companies and ends with a concentrated, high-conviction portfolio.

A screen built on 10,000 companies

The fund’s investment process is more mechanical than most. Starting from a universe of 10,000 publicly listed stocks, Nutshell applies minimum thresholds for return on invested capital, profit margin and market capitalisation, reducing the field to around 600 names. Those survivors are then scored against 30 financial factors and 20 additional criteria before any position is considered.

The result, in practice, is a portfolio weighted towards large, liquid businesses. The fund’s average holding has a market capitalisation typically above $100 billion, and all positions are required to be highly liquid, which limits blow-up risk from forced selling in a downturn. The benchmark the fund aims to outperform is the MSCI ACWI Index, measured over rolling three-year periods, with an investment horizon of five years or more.

Ellis founded Nutshell Asset Management in November 2019, backed by Michael Spencer, Baron Spencer of Alresford, founder of ICAP. The fund launched in May 2020 and sits within a UCITS wrapper, managed by Waystone Management Company (IE) Ltd and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Nutshell also runs the institutional Nutshell Dynamic Long Short Fund, an offshore equity vehicle, alongside its retail offering.

Nutshell Growth Fund performance and what it costs

The track record across the fund’s short life is uneven but skewed positive. Annual returns for the Institutional Class Accumulation GBP share class stand at -11.10%, 13.93%, 12.62%, 25.39% and 9.13% respectively, as at 7 September 2026. The fund delivered a 27% return in 2024 alone, with 16 individual stocks each contributing 1% or more to that outcome. The NAV of the GBP Institutional Class stood at 186.20p as of 7 August 2026, according to Morningstar.

The ongoing charge is 0.95% with no performance fee, which is competitive for an actively managed global equity fund. As of April 2025, the fund held a Gold Morningstar Medalist Rating, a 4-Star Morningstar rating, a 5 Crown Rating from FE fundinfo, and ranked in the top 1% of its peer group, according to FundCalibre, which also awarded it Elite Radar status.

For investors using platforms such as Trustnet to compare funds in the global equity space, the combination of a no-performance-fee structure, daily liquidity and a rules-based screening process gives the fund a reasonably clean profile. The fund is available via the Montlake UCITS platform, among others.

The three stock picks published by Ellis this week are aimed at investors seeking quality businesses at valuations that do not require heroic assumptions. The full selection appears in the latest issue of MoneyWeek. Whether those three names have cleared the 30-factor scoring bar is the first question worth putting to the fund’s published methodology; the next test is whether the market agrees before year-end.